The Merman's Children

by Poul Anderson

  He could not reach clear around that bulk. But when he let go, the tail threshed feebly, half severed. Dizziness passed in dark rags before his eyes. He must withdraw for a short rest.

  Did a dim knowledge stir in the tupilak, or was it driven to fulfill the curse? It lumbered back to the boats.

  If it sank those, whether or not it outlasted them, would Eyjan’s captors ever let her go? He heard the mass ram on strakes, and rose for a look through air.

  The second skiff drifted awash, helpless till the four crewmen left could bailout the hull and retrieve their floating oars. The tupilak struck again and again on Haakon’s vessel, whose stem was broken and whose planks were being torn free of the ribs. Neck and head reached in after prey. Where was the sheriff? His son Jonas hewed bravely with an ax-likewise, beside him, Steinkil. As Tauno watched, Steinkil stumbled into the teeth. They shut. Blood geysered. He reeled back, clasping the wrist where his right hand had been.

  Haakon stood forth. He must have been knocked out. Crimson smeared his own face and breast, the last bright hue under wolf-gray heaven. Somehow he spied Tauno, yards away. “Do you want help, merman?” he shouted.

  From under a thwart, he lifted the boat’s anchor, wooden-shanked but with ring, stock, and flukes of iron from former days, made fast by a leather cable to what remained of the stempost. Jonas had drawn back when Steinkil was crippled. The other two. cowered behind him. Haakon staggered aft. The jagged mouth yawned ready. He brought the anchor on high, crashed it down. A fluke put out the right eye and caught in the socket.

  The jaws had him. Riven, he puled free. “Men, swim!” he cried. “Tauno, take the beast-“ He crumpled.

  The halfling had strength back, and arrowed forward. Reckless of claws, he ripped. On the edge of sight, he saw Haakon’s crew go into the bay. The tupilak did not give chase. Tauno was harming it too much.

  It plunged when he did, seeking to seize him. But a Greenland skiff dragged behind. Hardly more could it move than if the sea had frozen around it.

  Tauno’s knives bit. Each piece that he cut away returned to the death whence the angakok had raised it.

  Finally an empty hide floated and a shark’s head sank down into darkness. The waves cleansed themselves. When Tauno, air-breathing, reached the second boat, he felt the wind on his brow like an austere benediction.

  Though now made useable again, the craft was not for him to board safely. Nine men were already an overload in a hull so splintered and sprung-nine, for by use of flotsam, both Haakon and Steinkil had been brought across. Tauno hung on the rail. The hale looked dazedly at him, drained of everything save awe. Steinkil’s bandaged stump looked as though he would live. Haakon would not. From breastbone to manhood, he was flayed open. His long frame sprawled in blood and entrails between two thwarts.

  Yet he clung to wakefulness. His eyes and Tauno’s met, dim-ming blue on hot amber. The Liri prince could just catch a harsh whisper: “Merman, I thank you... .Honor my oath, Jonas. . . . Merman, forgive me my lie about your people.”

  “You had yours to think of,” Tauno said gently.

  “And my daughter. . . . She’ll speak to you. . . . I’ve no right

  to beg. . . but will you find her and—“ Haakon strove for breath.

  “Beseech her-but if she won’t, tell her I. . . I never disowned my

  Bengta. . . and in Purgatory I’ll pray for her-“

  “Yes,” Tauno said, “Eyjan and I will do that.”

  Haakon smiled. “Maybe you do have souls, you merfolk.”

  Soon afterward he died.

  X

  FAERIE senses found spoor that mortals could never. Tauno and Eyjan cast about for a mere brace of days—though they did travel too through most of the enormous late-autumn nights-before they discovered the Inuit’s new camp.

  That was in a valley, small and snug above a high-walled bight. From the meadow a trail wound down toward the glimpsed gleam of water. A fresh spring bubbled out of turf gone sere but still soft underfoot. Dwarf birch and willow stood scattered, clinging to a last few yellow leaves. Elsewhere reared mountains, gray-blue where snow did not lie. Through an eastward cleft flashed a mysterious green off the inland ice. A haloed westering sun slanted rays through air brilliant, breathless, and boreal.

  Dogs bayed when the two big figures in fishskin tunics strode nigh, then caught the scent and quieted; they did not cringe like white men’s hounds. Hunters came out bearing harpoons, knives, or bows; they did not bluster. Women stayed at their tasks, bidding children stay close by; they did not voice fear or hatred.

  Everybody seemed to be at home, enjoying the spoils of a chase that had gone well. Over fire, meat of both seal and bear made savory smoke. More was hung on poles for safety; the larger hides were being scraped clean; women had begun chewing on the smaller to supple them. While stone huts were there against winter, as yet families used their conical tents. Passing by one of these, the newcomers saw a half-completed piece of work, a carv-ing in ivory of a musk ox. It was exquisite.

  They raised palms and called, “Peace! Remember us from the umiak. We are your friends.”

  Weapons sank or fell to earth. Bengta’s man took the word:

  “We could not see you well. The sun dazzled us. Somebody is ashamed.”

  She herself hastened forth to meet the siblings. “You won’t betray us to the Norse, will you?” she pleaded in that tongue.

  “No, Tauno said. “We do bear a t;nessage from them.”

  “And hard news for you, dear,” Eyjan added. She caught both

  Bengta’s hands. “Your father is dead. The tupilak got him as he and Tauno fought it. But he is avenged, the monster is slain, and before he went, he blessed you.”

  “O-o-oh-“ The girl stood moveless for a space. Her breath fogged the crackling cold, till it lost itself in a sky the color of her eyes. Smoke had dulled her hair, which she wore now in a knot, Inuit fashion. But she stood straight and healthy, in furs a queen might covet. “Oh, Father, I never dreamed—“ She wept. Eyjan hugged and comforted her.

  Minik had followed the talk. Clumsily, he patted her shoulder. “Excuse her,” he said in his own speech. “She is . . . not as well versed in right ways. . . as one hopes she will become in due course. Kuyapikasit, my first wife, will make food and roll out bedding for you.” He smiled, shy through sorrow on her behalf.

  Panigpak the angakok came likewise from the ring of staring folk. Trouble touched his worn features. “Somebody thinks he heard something about a tupilak,” he forced out. However Tauno loomed above him, his gaze and his stance were steady.

  “You heard aright,” the halfling replied. He and Eyjan had worked out beforehand what to say in the Inuit. Thus he told of the battle in swift strokes of speech.

  The people buzzed their horror. Panigpak was worst hit. “I am a fool,” he groaned. “I brought that danger on you, who never harmed us.”

  “Who could have foreseen?” Tauno consoled. “And, hark, there is more.

  “When we returned, Jonas Haakonsson sent his carls to sum-mon the men of the Vestri Bygd to a Thing, a meeting where decisions are made. My sister-he listened to her, and spoke as she counseled him. The rest listened to me. We frightened them, you understand, although they did suppose we had been sent for their rescue by the Great Nature.” That was as close as Inuit could come to “God.”

  Tauno went on: “We soon saw that little but the masterfulness of Haakon had kept them where they are. They heeded our wam-ing, what wise sea dwellers had told us, that this land will grow less and less fit for them until those who remain must starve.

  “They voted to depart for the south. The lot of them. First they need to be sure nothing will set on their boats. That is my sister’s errand and mine-to get your promise of safe passage come sum-mer. Thereafter the whole north country is yours.”

  The people yelled, danced, surged about; yet they seemed more excited than joyful, and joyful more because the feud had ended than because the victory was theirs.
“I will, I will!” Panigpak sobbed. “Yes, my sending will go forth as soon as can be, to bargain with Sedna for calm weather and many fish. And my sending will likewise ask if she who rules the deeps knows aught of your folk.”

  “Then, Bengta,” Eyjan said low, “you must decide your own tomorrows, and your child’s.”

  Haakon’s daughter drew free. Tears had made runnels through the soot on her face; the skin shone hawthorn blossom fair. But she wept no more, her head was aloft, her Norse rang: “That I did last year, when I chose Minik for us twain.”

  The visitors gave her an astonished regard. She clenched her fists and met it. Silence dropped over the Inuit.

  “Yes,” she said. “Did you think he took me away out of lust? Never would he force a woman, or deceive her; he knows not how to. And we were playmates once. He would have brought Hallfrid and me to my father. I begged him otherwise, and in charity he yielded. Charity. He had a good and able wife- who has also made me welcome. Few Inuit want two, when at need they can borrow; I think you of Faerie can see how clean a help that is between friends. I? I knew not an art of the many an Inuk woman must know. I could only swear I would try to learn. Give me time, and I hope to be no longer a burden on him.”

  “So you love him?” Eyjan murmured.

  “Not as I loved Sven,” Bengta said. “But for what Minik is,

  yes, I do.”

  It was not clear how well her husband had followed her wa-terfall of words. He did flush and, in an abashed way, looked pleased.

  “My hope is in him, and Hallfrid’s,” she said. “Where else is any? I talked with these folk through my whole life, every hour I could. I too, like you, became aware of the Fimbul Winter on its way; for they told how, year by year, they watched the glaciers grow and the sea lie ever earlier frozen, ever later thawed. When at last I sat in an ill-made house, fireless, among three corpses, my baby weakly mewing in my arms for hunger, I was sure of our doom. We in the Vestri Bygd could hang onto our misery till it strangled us; or we could go down to the Mid and Ostri Bygds-if those hold out-and be paupers. Whereas the Inuit-Look around you. They’ve done what the Norse will always be too stubborn for, they’ve learned how to live in this country that, after all, is my home-live well.

  “If you were me, Eyjan, would you not have snatched at a chance to join them?”

  “Of course,” the other girl answered. “But I am not Christian.”

  “What’s the Church to me?” Bengta cried. “The maunderings

  of an ignorant dodderer. I’ll take my hazard of Hell-flames, I who have been through Hell’s ice.”

  Her pride melted. Suddenly she covered her eyes and gasped, “But that I wrought my father’s death. . . I will be long in atoning for.”

  “Why do you say so?” Eyjan asked. “When you ran away, he harried innocent and helpless people. I doubt you ever guessed that stem man bore so wild a love for you. When the deed was done, should not their kith seek revenge, and an end to the threat?”

  “The tupilak was mine!” Bengta shrieked. “I thought of it, when they wanted to send me back for the sake of peace. I wore down Panigpak till he made it. Mine!”

  She sank to her knees. “I told him and everybody-whatever they did, quarrels and killings must worsen with worsening years-as long as the Norse remained-whereas if we drove them out, though it cost lives of theirs-it would be a mercy to them also-and I believed this. Holy Mary, Mother of God, witness I believed it!”

  Eyjan raised her and embraced her again. Tauno said slowly, “I see. You wanted your ~in, the darlings of your youth. yot wanted them out before too late. But the angakok would havc recalled and dismantled his creature next spring, whatever hap pened, would he not?”

  “Y -y-yes,” she stammered on Eyjan’s breast. “Then it slew mJ father. “

  “We told you, he blessed you ere he died,” Tauno said. Hi ran fingers through his locks. .. And yet... strange. . . how strange. . . the tupilak sent not in hate but in love.”

  Presently Atitak, Minik’s second wife, was calm enough to help prepare a feast. That night the northlights carne forth in such splendor that they covered half of heaven.

  XI

  SUMMER had passed, fall come back. The Danish ling bloomed purple, rowan flared, aspen trembled in gold. Down from the hunter’s moon drifted a lonesome wander-song of geese. In the mornings breath smoked and puddles crunched underfoot.

  Sunlight and cloud shadows chased each other across the land, on the wings of a chilly wind. Asmild Cloister took no heed. Foursquare among oaks that soughed with their last leaves, its bricks seeming doubly red against the heath beyond, it looked across a small lake to Viborg-cathedral towers, spire of the Black Friars’ church, walls of a guardian castle-as if yonder market town were unreal. That was not true of the sisters themselves, who carried on many charitable works; but here they had their retreat, whose harmony the world could not trouble.

  Or so it had seemed.

  Three came riding from Viborg, in accordance with earlier

  messages back and forth. They appeared respectable, in good but sober garb, on horses of the best stock. Dismounting at the nun-nery, the slender young man with flaxen hair assisted the pretty though clearly older woman down with due courtesy. His servant, who took charge of the beasts, was a burly fellow; but he must double as a bodyguard, and his own manners were seemly. The f1rst two requested admittance and entered with every deference.

  Notwithstanding, the prioress received them bleakly. “I must obey the bishop’s command,’.’ she said. “Nevertheless, the saints bear witness that this is most irregular. Know I shall be praying that you do not succeed in bereaving us of our fairest jewel.”

  “That’s not our aim, reverend mother,” Niels Jonsen avowed in his mildest tone. “You’ll recall from the correspondence that we twain are paying a debt of honor.”

  “Little enough have I been given to read, and that as it were a palimpsest,” the prioress snapped. “I am not so innocent that I cannot tell when there has been conniving-bargains struck, pressure brought to bear, temptations dangled-yes, even among lords of the Church.”

  “Those are grave charges, reverend mother,” Ingeborg Hjal-marsdatter warned. Realizing that she had indeed said too much, the prioress paled. Ingeborg smiled. “I understand. The girl has become dear to you, right? Then surely it should please you that now she’ll have a choice which was not hers before, and if she chooses to stay here-as well she may-it’s because her devotion is freely given.”

  “You speak of devotion, you? I’ve had inquiries made. Your presence besmirches this house.”

  “I’ve always heard as how anger is amongst the deadly sins,” Niels said, his own brow flushed. “Shall we get on with our business, reverend mother?”

  Thus the episcopal will was done. Niels and Ingeborg were led to the courtyard. Nobody else remained to listen, though doubtless several peered from windows beyond earshot.

  Margrete, whose flesh had been Yria, came out into the cloister arcade and halted. Not yet a novice, she was attired in a gown and wimple that suggested the black Augustinian habit. While she had gained inches and the shapeless raiment could not entirely hide waxing fullness of breasts and hips, it was still as if a child stood there, huge-eyed in the delicate face, lips timidly parted.

  Ingeborg advanced to take her hands, “Margrete, dear,” she greeted. “You know us not, but you know of us. We’re your friends, come to help you.”

  The girl shrank back. ‘They told me I must see you,” she whispered.

  “Ha! What else have they told you about us?” Niels snorted.

  “You’re a prize they’ll not gladly yield. The pilgrim trade-“

  Ingeborg frowned over her shoulder. “Hush,” she said. “This is no time for bickering.” To Margrete: “All we wish of you is that you listen to us, and ask whatever questions you like. It’s in private because some persons might be harmed, did the tale go abroad. You must swear you’ll breathe no word of it yourself, unless yo
u hear something wicked that you’d sin if you kept hidden. You won’t, I promise. The tale is of those who cared for your wellbeing enough to stake their lives in the cause-your brothers and sister, Margrete.”

  “I haven’t any,” the maiden stammered. “Not any more.”

  “Would you disown them? Why, you’d be in the sea today,

  unless you’d died the way an animal dies, save that they brought you ashore. Sit down.” Ingeborg urged Margrete to a bench. “Pay heed.”

  A flaw of wind swooped into the court, raw and boisterous.

  A cloud passed overhead like a white banner. Crows laughed.

  The story of the merman’s children was soon told, for Niels and Ingeborg softened it much. Margrete’s pallor grew more deep at first, but later blood coursed visibly through her cheeks.

  “The upshot is this,” Niels finished. “The lords temporal and spiritual who’re concerned know only that I’d fain honor a pledge to a comrade, and that my confessor gives me leave. The bishop of Roskilde has supported me stoutly throughout; we’ve become friends of a sort. Besides, donations in my name, made in. . . hm . . . thankfulness to the saints. . . they bring more of the gold to the Church as a whole, without drawing dangerous remark. Also, he agrees it’s right you should have an inheritance from your kin-for of course he’s aware by now that they, the halflings, led that faring, though I’ve held back from letting out more to him. “Well, a fortune awaits you in Copenhagen. Bishop Johan’s found a family-the man’s a rich merchant-who’ll be glad to adopt you, see to your upbringing, make you a fine marriage. You’re welcome to ride thither with us, if you want.”

  “I’ve met the family,” Ingeborg added. “They’re good, kindly, sensible; there’s peace in that home.”

  “Liveliness too,” Niels smiled. “You’ll enjoy yourself.”